Three bidders for Ronk Hub
Suffolk County received only three submissions from potential bidders interested in developing the land known as the “Long Island Hub” — the vast stretch south of the Long Island Rail Road’s Ronkonkoma station.
The Point has confirmed that the three companies include Ronkonkoma-based Tritec Real Estate, Syosset-based Blumenfeld Development Group, and IMEG, the Woodbury engineering firm formerly known as Cameron Engineering.
The submissions came in response to the county’s Request for Expressions of Interest, which was generated after Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine canceled the project previously known as Midway Crossing and removed Jones Lang LaSalle as the master developer in January.
A committee that was constituted to review the responses will meet soon “and put the next steps in place quickly,” said Romaine spokesman Michael Martino. He told The Point that the number of submissions made sense because the county’s request was “very specialized.”
“We knew there would be a limited amount of people who could respond to this project,” Martino said.
Previously, county officials said Jones Lang LaSalle hadn’t put together a “viable financial plan” or a full development team, and was unable to bring its proposal to fruition.
“Ed Romaine has taken these steps to bring order to the past chaos,” Martino said.
IMEG’s John Cameron had been a partner of JLL in the previous proposal. Now, he told The Point, his company has submitted on its own.
“We have seven years of experience on the site,” Cameron said. “In all candor and humility, we know more about the site than probably anybody.”
Tritec Real Estate has ties to the site, too, as the company is developing Station Yards, a mixed-use development that eventually will feature 1,450 housing units, on the north side of the LIRR tracks.
“We want to listen to the community to see what their thoughts are and get their input into the planning process before we propose a specific project,” Tritec principal Jim Coughlan told The Point.
“But we think we’re uniquely qualified as a Long Island developer who has addressed many of the issues that this regionally significant project is going to face …” Coughlan added.
Coughlan noted that Tritec has had to deal with multiple layers of government, infrastructure challenges, and zoning and environmental review processes in its work on Station Yards.
“We’ve successfully addressed [those challenges] on the north side and are looking forward to potentially doing so on the south side,” he added.
Read the full op-ed in Newsday.
